In a busy hallway on the sixth floor of a downtown courthouse, Alcira Ayala sat on a bench with her husband and daughter, anxiously waiting for her eviction case to be heard. She held a black cloth bag filled with neatly filed files that she hoped would help her win her case and stay in the apartment she and her family have lived in for nearly two decades.
Since learning this summer that her landlord wanted to evict them, Ayala has spent days calling and showing up at the offices of local nonprofit groups to ask for help.
She hoped for a free lawyer, but she quickly learned there weren’t enough in the city to represent everyone who needed help. To try to defend herself, she went to the Los Angeles Law Library to ask for advice on how to file the legally required response to the notice. She then took hours of online training from the nonprofit Eviction Defense Network, which teaches tenants without lawyers how to prepare for trial.
However, she was afraid of misunderstanding something or saying something wrong, so she tried to prepare for the hearing.
“I can’t be intimidated,” she said. “I’m fighting for my family.”
Every year, thousands of city tenants go to court and face eviction proceedings without a lawyer. For years, advocates have urged the city to change that, arguing that ensuring low-income tenants have lawyers would correct a power imbalance that occurs in eviction court, where landlords almost always have lawyers while tenants do not. Now, the city is moving toward that change.
This month, the City Council voted 11-0 to ask the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would establish a city-funded program to provide lawyers to low-income tenants. The program would be phased in over five years, starting in high-needs ZIP codes.
Funding for the tax would come from the ULA measure, also known as the “mansion tax,” which requires that 10 percent of the funds go toward providing legal services to low-income tenants facing eviction. The tax has raised $375 million in revenue since it took effect last year.
Alcira Ayala, left, speaks with her daughter Anael Lopez, right, and her husband Juan Lopez before her appearance in Stanley Mosk Court on Monday.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a right-to-counsel program for low-income tenants in unincorporated areas of the county. The program is expected to launch in January.
Some have criticized the efforts, saying they funnel money to lawyers when residents would be better off getting direct assistance so they don’t fall behind on their rent and risk eviction in the first place.
“It’s a waste of money to spend the city’s limited ULA funds on private attorneys,” said Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. “The city should be helping tenants pay their rent so they can stay housed.”
But tenant advocates say experience in other cities shows that providing tenants with lawyers helps keep them in their homes and preserve affordable housing.
In New York City, which in 2017 became the first city in the country to provide lawyers to low-income tenants facing eviction, the Department of Human Services reported that by 2023, 84% of households represented by lawyers in court were able to remain in their homes.
In 2018, Los Angeles began exploring its own right-to-counsel program and eventually approved funding for a limited eviction defense program. In 2021, as the pandemic raged and residents fell deeply behind on their rent, the city partnered with the county and local community and legal service providers to create Stay Housed LA, which provides support to tenants facing eviction, including connecting them with free attorneys in a limited number of cases.
But requests for assistance have far outpaced the aid available. Last year, for example, 7,446 city tenants requested legal representation. The program was able to provide attorneys to represent 997 tenants in court.
One of the biggest challenges has been the shortage of lawyers available to handle eviction cases. Those who provide free services to low-income clients are often strapped for resources. So organizations have begun working to teach residents how to navigate the legal system and try to defend themselves.
“We explain to them their rights, how to build their own evidentiary case and use the right language to present themselves in front of a judge,” said Sergio Vargas, co-director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). “We’ve been able to do that. But it’s not sustainable.”
Ayala’s landlord served him with a three-day notice in June, accusing him of preventing workers from removing plants and making other renovations, obstructing access to the garage and failing to provide the landlord with a copy of his keys.
Ayala said she thinks he was looking for excuses to deport her.
In court, the judge called Ayala’s case shortly after 9 a.m. She and her husband sat together at the attorneys’ table, with a translator behind them whispering Spanish translations into a microphone. Her landlord, an older man, sat across the table. Her lawyer was not in court that day, but he was on the phone.
The hearing ended within minutes. With the help of the law library, Ayala had filed a request for a jury trial before the hearing, hoping that a trial would allow him to present evidence in his defense.
The judge granted her request and set a trial date for early October. She had managed to delay the case by three weeks, and as she left the courtroom, she said she was pleased with the outcome, but knew it wasn’t over.
She planned to keep calling and going to as many legal agencies as she could to try to find a lawyer who would take the case. Maybe now that her trial is fast approaching, someone would be willing to help her out by setting up a payment plan, she said.
